A variety of legal, social and commercial efforts have taken place over the past 50 years and more, aimed at the removal of sulfides from fossil fuels. In the U.S., the Clean Air Act of 1964 and its evolution of amendments has been a major driving force in these efforts. Despite the benefits of low sulfide fossil fuels, the associated costs, undesirable changes to conventional methods of manufacture, which may impose unreliability and inefficiency of attempted improvements, have been a hindrance to progress and to obtaining the benefits from desulfurization of sulfur fuel. Some of this unreliability and inefficiency has been related to the control of temperature, pressure, corrosion and power in the chamber of the ultrasonic transducer, which in turn affects the performance of an ultrasonic horn for use in oxidative desulfurization of fossil fuels.
There remains a need for efficient and effective devices and methods for desulfurization. The present invention provides apparatus and methods for desulfurization using an ultrasonic horn.